Indonesian Grammar: A Traveler’s Guide

So, you’re looking to go to Indonesia? Well, if you’re headed there, you’ll need to know some of the language. Bahasa Indonesian is actually a dialect of Malay, the language spoken in various nearby countries, but it’s important to know it nonetheless. There are a lot of subdialects of Indonesian too, which I’ll get into later.

Overall, Indonesian isn’t super grammatically complicated. It also uses the same lettering system as English, so it’s easy for English speakers to read!

Depending on where you are, it can be difficult to navigate if you don’t speak Indonesian. This can cause unnecessary stress when you’re just trying to have fun and explore. If you’re going to Bali, though, many people there will speak English because of the heavy tourism.

Knowing basic phrases won’t get you super far if you don’t understand the response or your only option is street signs.

It doesn’t have to be difficult, though. You don’t need to speak the full language to find your way around. As long as you understand the basics and know what to look out for, you’ll be good to go.

So let’s go over them. I’ll explain each part of speech and some general grammar so you know how to find what you need.

I’ll also provide some good resources for understanding the language: dictionaries, some useful travel phrases, and a guide to Indonesian and Malay dialects.

Just to clarify: my goal isn’t to teach you the language from scratch. My goal is to provide a guide to the basics of the language so that you will know enough to travel. I would hope that this can serve as a good start for someone aiming to learn the language, but this isn’t intended as a comprehensive language course.

The Big Stuff: Indonesian Grammar

Sentence Structure and Word Order

Word order and sentence structure is important in many languages. If a language has complicated word classifications, these tend not to matter as much. In a language like Bahasa Indonesian (or English), where words seldom change based on their function in a sentence, this order is very important.

Luckily, Indonesian is very similar to English and the parts of it that are different aren’t very complex. Here’s what you need to know:

• Indonesian generally uses Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) word order. This is the same as English. The doer of the action comes first, then the action, then the recipient of the action.
• Adjectives and adverbs come after the thing they modify. This is the opposite of English. So, green car would be car green. There is one slight change in how adjectives work but I’ll get into that a little later.
• Pronouns can show up almost anywhere. It’ll be easier to explain this in the larger section.
• Verbs are in the same place as English.
• Yes-no questions work just like English, but there are some other changes I’ll mention.
• Prepositions always come after the verb.
• Questions operate mostly like in English.

A Quick Heads-Up About Affixes in Indonesian

The word affix isn’t super common, but it’s somewhat important for your understanding of the language. I won’t use complicated terminology (in fact, it’s something I’m trying to avoid), but the general idea is central to Indonesian. An affix is basically anything that gets added to a word. We have these in English: adding -‘s to a word makes it possessive, while adding just -s makes it plural.

What makes Indonesian different from English is how much it uses these. It’s important to know what to look for when identifying words or you might get it wrong. Here’s a quick rundown of how these happen:

• Something can be added to the beginning, like adding re- to redo in English.
• Something can be added to the end, like -er in English for runner or writer.
• Something can be added on both sides. This doesn’t really exist anywhere in English but can make a word look completely different.

Now, I’ll get into these fully later when they come up. But it’s important that you know to look out for them.

Questions in Indonesian

Arguably one of the most important things to know as a tourist, questions in Bahasa Indonesian are fairly straightforward. There are some little quirks of the language you should know, though.

Indonesian has its own equivalents of words like do, and who, what, where, etc. These function just like English, so knowing them is important if you’re asking people questions while traveling there.

If -kah is added to the end of a word, specifically verbs and adverbs, it means a question is being asked that focuses on that word. It’s like if I asked: Are you going soon-kah? In this case, my focus is on when you’re doing it. In Indonesian, though, that would move to the front, so it would be more like: Soon-kah are you going?

The big words to know for asking questions, which line up with some English question words, are

• apakah – do/does
• apa – what
• di mana – where
• siapa – who

Nouns

Nouns are pretty straightforward. They’re things: people, places, things, and ideas. They tend to be pretty similar to English in Indonesian, but there are some extra things they can do.

For one, if you see a verb (an action word) with pe- added to the front of it, this means the word is instead referring to someone who would do that thing. For example, bantu means to help, while pembantu means maid. Think of it like saying run vs runner.

If -an is added to the end of a verb, like temu (to meet) > temuan, it becomes a noun (meeting in this example).

Like I said above, some words will have things added to the beginning and end at the same time to change their meaning. With nouns, this comes in the following forms:

• ber-/ -kan or ber-/ -an (which indicates that you have whatever is in between those parts).
• Per-/ -an indicates many kinds of something (see my description of vegetables fegetables below for an explanation of this).
• These two things can also be combined into ber- per-/ -an which means that you have multiple kinds of something.

Ultimately, the reason to watch out for these is just to make sure that you know when a noun is being hidden by these other additions.

Reduplication/ Repeating a word

Pronouns

I hope you’re ready! Pronouns in Indonesian are, in my opinion, one of the most complicated parts of the language. There are a lot more than in English and they can get very specific, which might make them more confusing.

Unlike English, Indonesian pronouns don’t change based on context. So one pronoun takes the place of both I and me in English.

Personal Pronouns

So, personal pronouns are split between a formal and informal version. Expect to use the formal one when you don’t know somebody. If they start using an informal pronoun, then you should be good to switch as well.

Formal:

• Saya (I/me)
• Anda* (you)
• Beliau** (he/she)

*Anda is always capitalized
**Beliau is rarely used, and mostly for people you greatly respect who are not present.

Informal:

• Aku (I/me)
• Kamu (you)
• Dia (he/she)

Now, you may have noticed that I didn’t include plural pronouns above. They’re a little bit different, mostly with the we equivalent.

• Kita (we, inclusive)
• Kami (we, exclusive)
• Kalian (you guys/y’all)
• Mereka (them)

So, what makes kita and kami different? This is actually something that I think would help us a lot in English, but we unfortunately don’t have it. Kita means we but specifically expresses that it includes the person being spoken to. Kami does not include the person being spoken to. So, if you mentioned that you were going to a party with a group, you could use a different word if the person you’re speaking to is also going or not.

Pronouns Attached to other Words

This might sound a little weird, but it’s not that different from contractions in English, like I’m or we’ll. Here’s the ones to look out for:

• Ku- (I)
• Kau- (you)
• -ku (me/my)
• -mu (you/your)
• -nya (his/hers)

The main reason I explain these is that, in informal speech, these might come up and you’ll need to know about them to understand what’s being said.

Extra Considerations

Some nouns can be shortened into pronouns for ease of use. This can also change their context of use slightly:

• Bapak > pak (father)
• Ibu > bu (mother)

These two words are used to address someone with seniority in either age or position. They are generally formal, and used more often than the formal pronouns mentioned above.

• Mas (used for men)
• Mbak (used for women)

These two words are used for addressing someone of a similar age or position, but are still used somewhat formally.

Finally, there are some pronouns used to point things out:

• Ini (this)
• Itu (that)

Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives are used to describe color, texture, shape, etc. These words that describe nouns function much like in English, with a few important differences in how certain ideas are expressed.

Adverbs describe adjectives or verbs. They usually describe the intensity or how they happen. Both occur in similar situations and don’t have any significant differences. Most of this section will be about adjectives. For a good resource that lists adverbs, look here.

A big thing to know about adjectives is the use of dan when describing multiple traits of a thing. Dan means and. For adjectives, you would use dan to separate multiple descriptors for the same object. It’s like if I said “The car is big and green and loud.” You always separate adjectives with dan in this context. If you don’t, it sounds more like you’re saying “The big green loud car is” without anything following is.

Some smaller stuff, but still important

Much like nouns, adjectives can be repeated, which makes their meaning more intense. It’s like if instead of saying very sharp we said sharp sharp. This can happen in 3 ways:

• A direct repetition of the word, like shown above. This also turns it into a verb, so sharp sharp would mean something like to be extremely sharp.
• A repetition of the word with a slight change, like sharp marp. This one will be the most likely given its use for emphasis.
• The word will have an extra thing added to it in one or both repetitions. This will be the hardest to define without knowing the meaning of the add-ons, and the word being repeated may be hard to identify.

Adjectives, like nouns, can be compounded to form a different word. This will usually happen with an adjective and a noun together, though. These also have the most abstract meanings, so will be hard to understand properly unless you already know what they mean. Here’s an example: panjang tangan literally means long hand. It is implied to mean thief. Knowing that definition, it makes sense how the two things relate, but if you don’t already know it you might struggle to find its meaning on your own.

Verbs

Verbs in Indonesian are very easy for English speakers. If you’ve read my guide to Spanish, then you know how complicated they can be. There are some things that still make verbs in Indonesian more complicated (mostly things that get added on) but they aren’t super important if you’re a traveler.

Tense

What you definitely need to know is that verbs generally have only one form. Things like tense (when something happens) are expressed using other words:

• Present tense is the standard form of the verb. Other words can be added to be more precise, such as sering meaning often or tidak pernah meaning never. To say something like I am studying (i.e. an ongoing action), you just say sedang before the main verb.
• Past tense is expressed by saying telah or sudah before the verb. Another option is to give a specific time that something happened. Saying I run yesterday or I run last week can get the point across just as easily.
• Future tense is expressed in much the same way as the past tense. Adding the word akan before a verb indicates something happening in the future. You can use other words to be more specific, but akan must still be used.

Some Extra Stuff

Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it is! There are some other things to know about, though:

• Compound words
• Add-ons to verbs

Compound words can be formed with verbs. Some of these are obvious based on the words used and others are not. For example, gigit jari literally means to bite finger and refers to feeling disappointment. Like the others above, these just take practice to learn.

Verbs can be repeated or have things added to the beginning, end, or both sides. These are for some very specific circumstances, though, and not super important if you’re just traveling. If you’re curious, see my sources below! (Namely the first one.)

Prepositions

Here are the most important things to look out for regarding prepositions (words that link nouns together):

• Di
• Yang

These two words have some useful functions that you should be aware of.

Di is used in Indonesian to indicate a location. Think of it as meaning in, at, or on. Other prepositions can be paired with this to be more specific.

Yang encompasses the words that, which, and who in English. If you see it, assume it means one of these!

Beyond this, finding prepositions is just a matter of looking up their meaning.

Other Indonesian Languages and Dialects

Bahasa Indonesian is not even close to the only language spoken in Indonesia. In fact, there are over 700 languages spoken in the country. Bahasa Indonesian can get you far, but it won’t help you everywhere. (It is widely spoken all over, though!) Dialectal differences can also make a big difference in communicative ability.

This article perfectly sums up what you should know about the main dialects/ languages of Indonesian. This post is already getting too long, and if I tried to shorten the information they give there, a lot of important details would be lost.

Indonesian Pronunciation

Indonesian pronunciation is pretty consistent, which is useful for people learning the language. For a good pronunciation resource, go here.

I don’t put text-based pronunciation guides in these language articles. This is mainly because if your pronunciation or accent is different from mine, then the examples won’t work. The dictionary source I give below also provides pronunciation guides for each word.

Helpful Resources

For a good list of travel phrases you should know, check out this site.

Travel phrases can only get you so far, especially when you’re reading or listening. For a good offline dictionary, I would use the Indonesian-English Dictionary app by AllDict. (Which is unfortunately not on iOS, and I do not have easy access to an apple device.) When you use it to look up a word in either English or Indonesian, it will provide you with all synonyms, too. So if you look up “food”, you’ll see “makanan, pangan, makan, santapan, rezeki, masakan” as options. You can also click on any word to hear how it’s pronounced. I would definitely recommend clicking on the word, though, to make sure you know its full meaning.

For ease of access, I’ll include the pronunciation guide here as well.

Review, Conclusion, and Sources

Okay! I know that was a lot, but we’re in the home stretch. All in all, make sure you look out for anything added on to words and places where they repeat. There’s no particular way to identify a verb versus a noun in any given situation. Some of the things I mentioned in their sections (like time words, prepositions, or adjectives) should help a lot, though. Make sure you have a dictionary of some kind with you, as it will help you immensely when trying to get around.

Below are the sources I used to provide you with this information. If you need any additional information, it’ll be found there. (And let me know if anything was unclear or otherwise needs more information so I know what to add!)

Fair warning, though, that the first source is very academic and hard to read. I mainly used the chart on the second page and the information given in section 2. If you need/ want more information about the different parts added to words, it’s all listed there.

https://quantling.org/~hbaayen/publications/DenistiaBaayen2021.pdf

https://www.indonesianpod101.com/blog/2020/08/07/indonesian-word-order/#3

https://www.indonesianpod101.com/blog/2020/08/24/indonesian-pronouns

https://www.indonesianpod101.com/blog/2021/07/08/indonesian-tenses

Thanks for reading! Leave any comments, questions, or concerns below and I’ll get to them ASAP!

If you’re traveling somewhere else, keep me in mind! I post a lot of travel and language guides!